Considering a fondness for cheesy Italian giallo, pulpy horror movies and luchador-styled masked superheros, plus having sought out the original Fantomàs and Les Vampires series, how did I not come across Italian photo-comic ‘Killing’ (aka Satanik en Francès) sooner?
The premise is pretty straightforward- sadistic masked killer Killing goes around offing mostly undressed ladies in a variety of gruesome ways, while the detective chasing him remains just a step behind. (All photos courtesy of Dr. Odio’s Flickr stream, which has many more images.)
It lacks the random charm of ‘Les Vampires’ and class of ‘Fantòmas’, but seems fairly standard for Italian horror. Which is to say it’s wildly misogynistic and ultraviolent. Fun fact: Italian apparently has a female form of ‘bastard’, used quite liberally here!
Killing was also a big pop figure in Turkish movies, going under the name Kilink and starring in ‘Soy ve Öldür’, aka ‘Strip & Kill’, which hewed closely to the comic.
This was followed in typical Turkish fashion by movies that bore little resemblance to the original while infringing on multiple copyrights, like ‘Kilink Ucan Adama Karsi’, aka ‘Killing vs. The Flying Man’, who’s basically Turkish Superman.
A now-defunct site called ‘Go Sadistik’ created this trailer promising oodles of Sadistik comics and videos, but alas, no trace remains.
